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This completely flies in the face of all the talk of sobriety here, but it looks like I'm going to be teaching a course on beer tasting in the fall.

Just finished up this wild ass dude by Alan Berg

I just got back from another fun-filled session. 3 hours of stabbing on and around my spine....fun fun fun :) This time a lot more black went in (coat and bow mostly), a bunch of purple in the coat and bow and some pink in the Kitsune's feet. I have another 2 sessions planned (in 2 weeks, and the last one in 4 weeks), and the piece should be done then! :cool:

FTW Oakland http://ftwtattoo.com/ She is @cltattooing on Instagram.

I suppose I'll contribute to our collection of giant ass-flowers. Finished a few weeks ago by Grez!

I think people are really overstating the timelessness of traditional tattoos. I first started seeing them in the mid to late 90s when hardcore kids started getting them. I would guess this was to a large extent the influence of Higgs trickling down, though I did know a dude who got a bunch of bad old metal tattoos covered up with some really beautiful classic traditional done by The Dutchman in probably around 98 or so, and that was coming from a different place. Regardless, traditional tattoos have a time and a place, there isn't this continuity with them that a lot of people imagine there is, and my suspicion is that it's probably not going to be too long before traditional is going to be looked at with the same kind of sneering derision that a lot of people usually save for tribal or chromed out dragon sleeves. I'm not saying that a well-done traditional tattoo isn't going to age super well and that a big fuck off eagle on the chest or roses or a panther or whatever isn't always going to look badass, because it will, and I'm going to continue getting tattoos like that because they're powerful and they get me stoked, but don't fool yourself into thinking that they'll always be the "cool" tattoos. There are a lot of twenty year olds out there who are keepin' it super old school by getting face tattoos who are putting on shitty "traditional" tattoos that look like total ass. There's stupid things circulating of old timey celebrities with traditional tattoos photoshopped on them, I mean, there was a recent thread here about a gallery show of fucking porcelain dolls with traditional tattoos painted on them. Shit is becoming an unfunny joke.

I'm pretty impressed they were able to get a tattoo that won't fade over time! Good for them. Seriously though, I love reading bad Yelp reviews of highly regarded tattoo shops. It truly shows how little people understand tattooing and how insane some people's expectations are. It's often a shame for the shops, though. As evidenced in this thread, and in countless reviews, people throw out shitty reviews for ridiculous reasons, and I'm sure it often costs shop owners money.

revisited my guilty pleasure of reading bad yelp reviews of good shops/artists. This reviewer gave 5 stars (a positive review!): "Called to make an appointment. The receptionist (guy) was polite enough. Definitely sounds like he's capable of being a douche bag but he was informative. I can't wait to go get my tat on Saturday." It appears complaining about the receptionist/phone answerer is the "cool" thing to do on yelp.

I like to use Yelp for regular businesses like restaurants and stores. For tattoo shops it's not useful, because people who complain never give specifics and their problems usually sound small. They always say something like "tattoos are good but the vibe is snobby" or "very bad service, they refused to tattoo the idea I had, which was a great idea but of course I'm not going to tell you what it is in this review." They don't seem to respect the tattooer's right to not take on work that doesn't interest them/would look terrible. Honestly, I like the fact that Yelp exists so I can get back at people who screw me over. For example this dog boarding place recently failed to take care of my dog by walking her outside of the enclosure, something they assured me they wouldn't do. She escaped and ran across a highway. They also did many other things wrong but I won't get into it. I didn't actually write a bad review on Yelp for this (yet...) but knowing I have the ability to makes me feel a bit less like a worthless pawn in the system.

I'm just saying that we should beware the hubris of mocking how ugly a former tattoo trend while thinking that our current tastes are timeless and will never seem outdated to anybody. I love my traditional tattoos, but I also know that they will look very much of their time and uncool to people somewhere down the road. Tastes change. No one and no style is immune.

Thanks for the kind words, y'all! I am so stoked both to have it and to be done with it--I got it done in about a year, which flew by (even if each session was a mini eternity) but I'm excited to not have to heal this summer.

Sleeve-y sleeve being done in Beijing. Chinese Opera/flower/bat freehand jazz.

Just finished. Mask by Anderson Luna. Hopefully the detailing will hold and not turn into a blurry blob down the road.

I can't take a thread titled "Facial Tattoos" seriously. Sorry guys...

Nice post Graeme. Applies to many things. I'm too old to care what is currently considered "cool". I just go with what I like.

can i add this yelp review of a tattoo shop. I saw this before and googled for it now, thought it was really funny. please read what she says and the details. They are too funny to me. (like the time of her "date") Hands down the worst experience that I have ever had with a human being. Bad all bad every single review here is telling the truth. 1st of all he is a liar, I met him about a year & a half ago on a dating website & he lured me over by telling me he was interested in me & offering to tattoo me as a 1st date.. awww how nice huh? Nope! l get there & it was not in a studio (like he said it was) it was in a room of a home, nothing professional, I should have left then but some of us have to live it to learn it (me) he started a tattoo & could not finish because it was like 3am & I was tired... good way to get me to come back right? Right.... LONG story short... he wrecked my skin & it cost me over $400 to fix it & I am not finished w fixing the art work of Shane, as the 3rd work of art I have been told that its not fixable & will have to be removed or completely covered up to make it right because he dug so hard on the blotched up eyelash area of eyes that he did on me... THANKS!!! I posted pix to show what he can do... THEN the madness that goes along w the mess of ink is priceless!! His unstable explosive entitled pushy attitude is beyond out of control. He harasses & bullies & people should be warned... he didnt even know me like that!!! I should have posted this a long time ago... well actually I did post this a long time ago & he got ahold of me & begged & threatened me to take it down... I just came from hearing that my tattoo cannot be fixed (again) so I am mad all over again!!! STAY AWAY!!!!

HAHAHA!! I just went back and read this old post from you @BrianH. Hilarious. Tattooer tries to give them solid advice for their benefit and they act like a brat about it, then go on to insult traditional tattoo styles and imagery. Extra funny to me because I saw almost every artist at Temple do a consult or tattoo while I was there and everyone was exceedingly kind, helpful, and professional the entire time. Would love to check in with this person 10+ years down the line and see how their tattoo "exactly how I wanted it" is holding up.

With thigh tattoos (especially big ones) it has taken me up to two weeks til I'm not sore anymore.

Before my appointment I looked up Temple's address on Yelp and came across this review. Gave me a laugh. I think I've said on here before but I'd never trust Yelp reviews for anything more than finding a quick lunch spot. So many uninformed people making stupid comments, on top of the company's shady business practices and bullying.

@CultExciter -- I'll be in SF for the next month(ish)! Are we still Instagram buddies? I'm going to DM you my number. Would be funny to meet you on the West Coast when we're both from the East Coast.

Bump. No major plans just yet. I plan on seeing Joel Long's exhibit at ATAK, and then going to the Perseverance show.

Going back to 1975-1980, you really had to ferret out an artist who would do a face tattoo. Most would not do anything above the collar and even hands. Rob

I've never done anything like this and I need to figure out exactly how I'm going to do it, but it should be a lot of fun. I suppose if the only thing I'm in any way qualified to teach is beer drinking, I've done pretty okay in life so far.

I don't think she's saying to apologize for it in anyway. But styles change, and even though traditional tattoos do have a staying power, certain elements won't be as accepted. I think it was Catcher in the Rye that said something along the lines of "no matter how cool it looks now, years down the line we'll all just look like those old people doing the Charleston." Should we apologize for that or let it sway what we get? Fuck no. But I'd be curious to see what collectors/tattooers/whoever think of my tattoos in ten-twenty-fifty years.

Am I the only one who is in love with the heaven and hell back piece that Steve Byrne is working on, I know I'm a total fanboy but every progress pic just blows my breath away

Just returned from another trip to China. I was actually shocked at how much enthusiasm and positive response there was to our tattoos this time around. Everywhere, literally...like, here are all these cultural relics, history, ancient landmarks, wonders of the world that are hundreds of thousands of years old...but wait rook! It is a crazy foreigner with all these tattoos. "WOWEE So very beautiful" was the typical praise. Chinese all wanted to get photos with our tattooed kung fu team, kind of fun to be a spectacle in China for a few weeks. The young kids at the Shaolin Temple were super hyped because I have lots of different animals tattooed. I would use the tattoos (and kung fu poses) to help practice their English vocabulary. Dragon, monkey, crane, tiger, eagle, frog, turtle, snake...and my miniature preying mantis tattoo was the obvious favourite, it got tonnes of laughs and what I assume translated from Mandarin into "what the...crazy foreigner...mantis...look how so tiny...funny!" I told my Shaolin friends the tattoos were Canadian chi gung, funny to hear a shaolin monk grimace about "much pain" from tattoos when you just watched them bust metal and sticks across their body. This photo below makes me laugh. Buddy Beijing was so pumped on the tattoos on my forearms I had to hulk hogan my shirt for him. He then got so amped and insisted we take a photo with him and his baby. And then with grandma and gramps. And then the whole family. And then individually. It was a pretty magic moment and victory for international tattoo relations! There was some confusion and disappointment though that I had near everything on my body tattooed...except for my back! Well there's always next time...starting my backpiece journey next month :cool: ------ my Instagram is "dennis_kool" if anyone is interested in pics from Shaolin and China

On Sunday I got a gross Mr. Toad. No particular reason, I wanted to start getting more stuff on my legs, and I wanted something traditional Japanese. Done by Stace at waterstreet tattoo in vancouver, Canada.

finally got my other knee tattooed this afternoon. by lowercase j

More progress on my back piece this weekend. Artist: Jill Bonny - State of Grace (The bird and side piece were already there)

Hello and greetings to everyone here at The Last Sparrow Tattoo Forum! Allow me to introduce myself - my name is Jay, and I live in England all the way over here in the UK. We have a pretty okay tattooing scene here but nowhere near as big as the USA. I guess that even though I did do an 'apprenticeship' - I say that with the Dr Evil 'Laser' gesture because that time is a horror story all of its own... but anyway, I don't class myself as a tattooist because I never managed to get a job in another shop after that (this was almost 3 maybe 4 years ago). So I guess now, I'm just a guy who's very respectful to the industry. I'm a huge fan of the traditional art of guys like Sailor Jerry, Ed Hardy, Mike Malone and I love the artwork of Horiyoshi III, too. So I guess if I were to specialise in a type of art, it'd probably be traditional and Japanese. I also play guitar in a rock band and I love doing that - been playing since I was about 13 or 14 years old, so roughly around 10 years in music. So enough about me! Why am I here? Well...one day I'm on youtube giggling a train wrecks of people trying to teach tattooing via the internet and I happen to stumble across an interview on a channel called LastSparrowTattoo. I watched this video from start to finish and it was about an hour and a half long - this video opened my eyes and seriously changed my entire outlook on tattooing. So I watched a few more - I would first and foremost like to thank the following people for making me realise just how special this whole thing really is - people like Scott Sylvia, Jeff Cribb, Oliver Peck, Juan Puente, Dan Dringenberg and Freddy Corbin. Hearing all these old stories about how they got started (especially Jeff Cribb - because my story is very similar to his) - really made me sit up and think. I want to learn as much as I can, as often as I can. I would love to connect with you guys and share thoughts and stories and maybe learn something from it. On closing, Scott Sylvia, thank you for founding this website and generating an awesome online community. I would love to meet you one day and get tattooed by you - seriously, from the bottom of my heart, thank you. I hope to speak to many of you guys here soon! :)

Here's a new watercolor piece from Tattoo Paradise in DC, posted on Facebook today, done by David Cavalcante. It's interesting because it looks like it's actually a black and gray tattoo, with color around it. So I guess when the watercolor fades, you'll just have a b&g tattoo. Not a bad idea?

I have slapped the heck out of my arm over the past few days...I forgot how much tattoos itch when they are healing! It'll be healed just in time for my next session next week, and I can start all over again. Gotta say, I LOVE the start my artist made last week though. It could probably stand on its own.

HA! Breakfast! That's so foreign to me, I always seem to get tattooed after 5pm...

@peterpoose Just take it as someone loving what you get so much that they have no sense of self-worth, to the point that they'd get something that you got. As Chaz, the graffiti artist said at the Perseverance show, biting is the highest compliment.

Sir! I salute you!

Me and three mates are all ditching work to get Friday the 13th tattoos, ill be sure to post mine up tomorrow

I love Friday 13th tattoos :) I will prob get one!

i just want to look like Walt Disney threw up all over me :cool:

@semele I know I say this any time you post any part of it, but goddamn is that sweet. I can't wait to start my Grez battle royale sleeve in January.

30 in 30 sounds like a breeze... Usually I hear 90 in 90. Some people swear by it. I think you just have to do whats best for you and constantly evaluate yourself and your needs, then adjust accordingly. - - - Updated - - - Also big news for me... I got accepted to an MSW program! Starting in the fall and so ready to hit the books again after a few years of mindlessly working. And my husband and I have been struggling with our opposing schedules and the new puppy has made it challenging to find alone time together, but last night we hung out in bed and chatted for a long time before falling asleep and I had so much fun just catching up and being silly. I haven't laughed that hard in years! It's a beautiful thing having a life partner. I highly recommend it! :)

Yeah, yours has the sultry. The other chick looks zoned out or ready to sneeze. Any thought to contact them and ask WTF, even if you aren't upset?

Had a consult with Grez on Saturday for my next one in mid-July. We also chatted a little about my arm that I'll finally be starting in January.

Went to an NA meeting in SF tonight. It was marked an atheist meeting, but they still had the traditional 12 steps. Seemed odd. Anyway, I went, introduced myself, and heard the stories, all of which I related to in a very deep way. The speaker held the room without any seeming effort, and I enjoyed what he had to say about changing the way one views life. One word of advice, and I can't speak for all NA meetings, but do not drink the coffee at NA meetings. It was beyond scalding and there was only powdered creamer and refined sugar. What possessed me to drink it in the first place is beyond me. Took one sip and politely set the styrofoam cup under my chair. After the meeting, I took some of the pamphlets, and chatted with one of the members about taking the first step and how he was working on his higher power. After the meeting, I took it upon myself to get lost for an hour and a half trying to find my car. Just got home and wrote this post. Going to a meeting tomorrow, perhaps with my sister's boyfriend, who has attended meetings before. Yay me.

by Stewart Robson On a side note, me and @ThatGuy crossed paths in Frith Street without realising, Crossing the online/reality divide. It's a Fantastic back piece! Gets my vote this month.

Glad to see this thread still popping up every now and then! I'm getting a big piece on my right thigh in September; that'll keep my legs asymmetrical. I kind of want to get something on the back of my left elbow so I don't look quite so symmetrical from behind (right now each of my shoulder blades are covered equally). Booo, symmetry! Haha. BUT I haven't ventured down either arm yet, and that'd be a big step for me, so still pondering. Found an artist I would LOVE to give some highly visible real estate to, though! He's in Germany, and I'll be there this fall. Coincidence? I THINK NOT

At the request of @polliwog , here's that tattoo from @cltattooing . This was after it was all healed except for the smoke, which later lightened to where you can see the outlines.

Not re-pressed yet but worth seeking out is the Eye Tattooed America book. For some reason I just assume everybody has the same books I have. I'm kind of in the same boat as Ed in that respect of not realizing how popular they were. When I heard they were reprinting Tattootime I said to myself "I thought everybody has those books?"

I used to see this guy years ago in unemployment. He had a big panther head on his cheek, real old school style. This was in 1980. Small wonder he was in unemployment all the time! Rob

tilt at new life tattoo in champaign, il

I mean I've done two one on a guy and one on a girl. They were both beauty marks otherwise I wouldn't do em. It's alarming the volume of young kids getting facial tattoos. It's my opinion that you don't look hard when all you have tattoo wise is a few knick knacks on your face. You just look like a dumb asshole.